The Kindle Reader

Monday, February 18, 2008

The Sony Reader is much smaller, and weighs three ounces less than the Kindle, but the screens are exactly the same size, and use the same E-Ink technology. They have more or less the same comfort advantage over LCDs and other glowing screens—and of course, they have no backlight

Side by side, fonts appear smoother on the Kindle than on the Reader, and the Kindle has a choice of six font sizes, as opposed to Reader's choice of three. Both let you bump font sizes up or down on the fly, a major convenience

The Reader has active screens—showing animated status indicators and so on—while Kindle screens are always static. If anything on the Kindle page changes, the whole screen does a full refresh.

The Sony has a dedicated music player and JPEG viewer; Amazon hasn't quite nailed that yet. However, the Kindle does have one thing the Reader doesn't have in this department: a speaker. It's not bad either, if you're mostly hoping to hear audiobooks and background music

Even though you can drag and drop files to the Reader, you can only do that with unprotected stuff like PDFs, MP3s and JPEGs. Kindle's drag-and-drop potential is even less, since you can only drag a certain subset of compatible files over to it.

no way to download books from Sony's store without using the special eBook Library software, which is cumbersome and works only with Windows PCs.

Using the eBook Library with the Reader, you can get certain views of content that you cannot get in any way with the Kindle, and you can even read books on your computer that are stored on the Reader (though I am not entirely sure why you'd want to do that). Here's a look at the eBook Library interface:

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Amazon.com's recently introduced Kindle is a breakthrough because it's the first e-book reader that can wirelessly download books. It connects with a high-speed cellphone-like network and uses a high-resolution display technology called electronic paper, which makes the words on the screen look like ink printed on paper.The Kindle is a viable alternative to reading an actual book, and you may sometimes forget that you are reading an electronic gadget. But it does have some significant flaws, like the lack of a built-in light and the fact that there's really no natural place to rest your hands while reading. And it's not the prettiest thing to look at.The $400 price tag also needs to come down for the Kindle to truly take off.By far, the best thing about the Kindle is how easy it is to download content. Not having to hook it up to a computer with an Internet connection is like having access to a giant library or bookstore in your hands.Best-selling books typically cost about $10 and are downloaded almost instantly. There's a built-in keyboard to make finding a book easier. You can also pay to read newspapers, magazines and some blogs. For instance, a monthly subscription to The New York Times costs $14; a monthly subscription to Time costs $1.50.The Kindle can hold more than 200 books, magazines or newspapers, and it has a media card slot if you need more storage.Weighing 10.3 ounces, the Kindle is lighter than most paperback books and it fits easily into a bag or purse. The 6-inch screen is smaller than the pages of most hardcover books, but you can choose from six text sizes to make reading easier.Unlike paper books, you can hold the Kindle with one hand and turn the page by pressing a button on the side of the screen. It comes with a black case that protects the device and holds it in place while you read.Since you can change the text size, it's not possible for the Kindle to display page numbers that correspond to the ones in the paper version. Instead, there's a "progress bar" that uses a string of dots that turn bold as you progress through the book and "locations," such as "2406-10."The Kindle automatically remembers where you left off

Friday, January 25, 2008

Kindle is a breakthrough because it's the first e-book reader that can wirelessly download books. It connects with a high-speed cellphone-like network and uses a high-resolution display technology called electronic paper, which makes the words on the screen look like ink printed on paper.The Kindle is a viable alternative to reading an actual book, and you may sometimes forget that you are reading an electronic gadget. But it does have some significant flaws, like the lack of a built-in light and the fact that there's really no natural place to rest your hands while reading. And it's not the prettiest thing to look at.The $400 price tag also needs to come down for the Kindle to truly take off.By far, the best thing about the Kindle is how easy it is to download content. Not having to hook it up to a computer with an Internet connection is like having access to a giant library or bookstore in your hands.Best-selling books typically cost about $10 and are downloaded almost instantly. There's a built-in keyboard to make finding a book easier. You can also pay to read newspapers, magazines and some blogs. For instance, a monthly subscription to The New York Times costs $14; a monthly subscription to Time costs $1.50.The Kindle can hold more than 200 books, magazines or newspapers, and it has a media card slot if you need more storage.Weighing 10.3 ounces, the Kindle is lighter than most paperback books and it fits easily into a bag or purse. The 6-inch screen is smaller than the pages of most hardcover books, but you can choose from six text sizes to make reading easier.Unlike paper books, you can hold the Kindle with one hand and turn the page by pressing a button on the side of the screen. It comes with a black case that protects the device and holds it in place while you read.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Buoyed by media attention and generally positive professional reviews, Amazon.com's electronic book reader, the Kindle, remains sold out more than a month after its launch.But according to one measure of popularity -- Amazon's own star rating system -- the Kindle has had only lukewarm success. So far, more than 1,300 visitors have ranked the device and have awarded it with an average of 3 1/2 out of five stars

The mixed reviews demonstrate that the Kindle has a ways to go before it persuades buyers to turn in paper pages for an electronic screen -- a fact that has led some analysts to question whether Amazon might want to license its Kindle book-buying service, leaving the design of the book reader to others.The Kindle allows users to read books, newspapers and blogs on a screen designed to replicate the crispness of a paper page. Kindle owners can also get access to an online store where they can wirelessly download media to read or save.

It's difficult to imagine a harder first act to follow than The Kite Runner: a debut novel by an unknown writer about a country many readers knew little about that has gone on to have over four million copies in print worldwide. But when preview copies of Khaled Hosseini's second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, started circulating at Amazon.com, readers reacted with a unanimous enthusiasm that few of us could remember seeing before. As special as The Kite Runner was, those readers said, A Thousand Splendid Suns is more so, bringing Hosseini's compassionate storytelling and his sense of personal and national tragedy to a tale of two women that is weighted equally with despair and grave hope.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J. K. Rowling. No Kindle edition. Hardcover. $19.24. The last book in the Harry Potter series. "Readers beware. The brilliant, breathtaking conclusion to J.K. Rowling's spellbinding series is not for the faint of heart--such revelations, battles, and betrayals await in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that no fan will make it to the end unscathed." - Amazon book description.

The bad: Design is ergonomic, but not very elegant; pricing for nearly all the content seems too high, especially considering the periodicals and blogs are available for free online; black-and-white screen is fine for books, but less impressive for periodicals and Web content; lacks a true Web browser; included cover is clumsy and poorly designed; additional file formats need to be e-mailed to Amazon for conversion; yet another dedicated device you'll need to lug around with you.

The bottom line: With its free built-in wireless capabilities and PC-free operation, Amazon's Kindle holds a distinct advantage over Sony's Reader and is a promising evolution of the electronic book--but Amazon needs to bring down the pricing for both the device and the content to attract a wider audience.